This blog site is a place for Anna Jaworski, author of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents and My Brother Needs an Operation, and editor of The Heart of a Mother and The Heart of a Father, to keep readers updated on important news related to Baby Hearts Press and important information for the heart community. For more information about Baby Hearts Press, please visit us at http://www.babyheartspress.com.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Ghost Body Parts?

Dear Heart Friends:

When I saw the film that talked about developing ghost body parts, but most specifically, ghost hearts, I became very excited! What the scientific community can now do to strip the cells away from an organ and then implant cells from an organ recipient, in order to "grow" them a fully functional organ with their own native tissue so the organ will be completely accepted by the body without the need for immunosuppressant drugs is something out of the annals of science fiction -- and yet it's not. It is actually happening today.

Please go to this link:http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2012/08/ghost_heart_a_framework_for_gr.html
to read more about the research being done. On this page there is also a short PBS video (less than 15 minutes) which shows how the scientist created the method of cleaning the donated organ and then implanting the cells from the organ recipient. It is unbelievable. Perhaps the most amazing thing was watching a beating heart in a jar. Amazing.

It is science like this that needs support because with advances like this in science, we could save scores of lives. There are so many people waiting for organs every day who die waiting. If we could use this kind of science -- replication of single organs instead of cloning entire bodies -- then people need not die awaiting a heart. As if that news isn't good enough, it gets even better. In addition to not dying while waiting for a heart, the recipients won't need the strong drugs that are currently needed by organ recipients and there will not be a need for re-transplantation.

The hope that science like this provides is immeasurable. It isn't science fiction. It's science fact and it's magnificent!